Tough times for the past ...

... I was given the heads up today that the venerable Pioneers Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado, may be a casualty of the shrinking city budget... You can read about the city's woes here. This is extremely distressing to me—not just on a philosophical level, but on a personal level as well: I became a "long distance" member of the museum this summer and was looking forward to some enlightening emails exchanges with some of its researchers regarding the as-yet-unnamed Book #4 of the Silver Rush series...

Of course, Colorado Springs isn't the only city with budgetary woes. Right here in my home state of California and in other states as well, there's agonized slashing and burning (of the financial variety) in nearly every direction. Libraries—another institution that "guards the past"—are also closing left and right, or finding their hours severely curtailed.

Very sad, all in all ... the past is such an easy target, with its ghosts, its books, letters, objects, and images. With all that's going on here and now, who cares about the past?

But, when we shutter the museums and the libraries—the windows to the past—we are, in a sense, blinding ourselves (it's that old "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" business).

Anyhow, here's hoping that some way is found to keep the museum going, and for libraries to find a way to keep the lights burning for everyone.

Another bookstore bites the dust

I was planning to blog more about editing today, but saw this article in the San Francisco Chronicle about Stacey's Bookstore planning to close in March. Stacey's has been around for 85 years. I thought back to the closing of Cody's Books, in Berkeley, and have the same feelings of shock and sorrow now as I did then.

Bookstores are like libraries to me: I couldn't do without them. I suppose they should have been on yesterday's list of addictions. But, in a way, they are there on an unspoken level. When I think of reading, I think of those libraries and bookstores that have been like a second home to me throughout my life, been like a breath to my soul and spirit.

Here's a few bookstores and libraries that are/have been like that for me. This is completely off the top of my head (and in completely random order).

Brick-and-mortar bookstores

• Cody's Books (Berkeley)
• Moe's Used Books (Berkeley)
• The Book Mine (Leadville)
• The Poisoned Pen (Scottsdale)
  
• M is for Mystery (San Mateo)
• San Francisco Mystery Bookstore (S.F.)
• The Tattered Cover (Denver)
• Murder by the Book (Denver)
• High Crimes (Boulder)
• Boulder Bookstore (Boulder)
• Goodenough Books (Livermore)
• Towne Center Books (Pleasanton)
• The Book Haven (Salida)
• Chinook Bookstore —— ?I think it was called this... I'm reaching a long way back in my memories to the 1970s for the name (Colorado Springs)

Okay, not to slight the other wonderful bookstores that weren't right "off the top of my head," but I've got to stop. Looking over the list, I realize that several of these no longer exist (or won't soon). How sad.

Now, libraries

• The San Leandro Library (California)
  
• The Castro Valley Library (California)
  
• UC Berkeley's libraries—primarily Moffitt and Doe (California)
  
• Denver Public Library (Colorado)
  
• Boulder City Library (Colorado)
  
• Pleasanton Library (California)
  
• Livermore Public Library (California)
  
• Lake County Library (Leadville, Colorado)

Anyone else want to mention bookstores and/or libraries that are or have been near and dear to them? If so, be my guest.